A prior art female coaxial connector socket for receiving a mating male coaxial connector plug includes a cylindrical tube into which a cylindrical tube of the mating plug is screwed. There are other types of coaxial male plug and female socket connector combinations wherein a connection is automatically established when the plug is inserted into the socket. In such structures, a screw connection is usually not implemented. In one prior art structure a spring cage is mounted in a cylindrical socket of the male plug outer metal sleeve to provide connections between the socket and plug without screw action. Such a cage establishes elastic contact between outer tubular conductors of the male and female connector members. The connection is established by plural discrete and elastical mating strips that establish an elastic contact between the male and female connector members.
However, when the coaxial male plug and female socket connections are automatically established by inserting a module or cassette into a corresponding insertion frame, a problem is frequently encountered in that the plug parts must be floatingly supported with a given play in an insertion frame. In addition, the inserted module must have provision for mechanical connector tolerance compensation. However, with known connectors, frequently the connector female socket and mating male plug are not precisely axially aligned. Consequently, the plug outer conductor sleeve makes poor contact with the outer conducting sleeve of the female socket. The poor contact enables electromagnetic energy, particularly energy in the Gigahertz region, to escape from the connector. In addition, such a coaxial connection is quite likely to malfunction because it is highly susceptible to poor contact conditions due to vibrations. If the male and female connector parts are frequently plugged into and removed from each other, the connection frequently fails entirely as a result of wear. In addition, a floating support of the corresponding elements is complex and costly to make because the contact is implemented by springs.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved coaxial socket for a plug-in socket connector, wherein the plug-in socket connector prevents escape of high-frequency electromagnetic fields, particularly in the Gigahertz range, and establishes a low loss connection between the male and female connector elements.
Another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved relatively inexpensive coaxial socket that is highly reliable in use and easily manufactured and wherein a male element is easily inserted into the female element without any screwing action.
A further object of the invention is to provide a new and improved relatively inexpensive coaxial connector socket having few parts.